


Perfect Cuts

by xxx_cat_xxx



Series: Red in my Ledger [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Cutting, Gen, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Post-Mission, Self-Harm, Smoking, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 11:38:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18498184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_cat_xxx/pseuds/xxx_cat_xxx
Summary: Once the debrief is over, Nat locks herself in the bathroom, pulls out one of her shorter knives and tries to fight pain with pain.They all have strategies to numb themselves when a mission goes badly. Steve exercises until he drips with sweat and moves like his muscles ache deeply. Tony has his alcohol. Clint vanishes into the forest and hunts, doesn’t eat for days except for what he takes down himself. Nat tells herself that she is not really different from them, then. She knows it's a lie, but it's a sweet one.





	Perfect Cuts

**Author's Note:**

> I know Nat & Tony is not a very popular combination, but I think it works out in this case. This is my first attempt and I know it's far from perfect, but I'm trying. Thanks to [Builder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Builder/pseuds/Builder) for the inspiration and for bringing Natasha’s character to life in your _Nat on Fire_ series.

Once the debrief is over, Nat locks herself in the bathroom, pulls out one of her shorter knives and tries to fight pain with pain.

She tells herself that they all do it in one way or the other, that they all have strategies to numb themselves when a mission goes badly. Steve exercises until he drips with sweat and moves like his muscles ache deeply. Tony has his alcohol. Clint vanishes into the forest and hunts, doesn’t eat for days except for what he takes down himself. Bruce doesn’t seek physical pain, but the kind of music he tends to listen to speaks for itself.

Nat tells herself that she is not really different from them, then. She knows it’s a lie, that cutting herself is on another level entirely than boxing or drinking, but it’s a sweet lie. It helps, sometimes. 

Today had been bad, bad, bad. It’s such a cliché that it’s nearly funny again, and Nat might laugh at herself if she wasn’t sure that it would make her throw up. Out of all people, she should be the one most immune to the choking guilt that comes along with the death of children, knowing all too well that they are everything but innocent. But the joke’s on her, because the image of the small girl being crushed by concrete blocks seems to have burned itself into her retina.

Nat never touches her forearms, no matter how tempting their soft pale skin is. It would be too salient, impossible to seduce a target or even pass a SHIELD medical exam with that kind of scars. The same applies to her thighs, although people who get to see them usually don’t care very much about her current state of fuckedupness. Still, Nat wouldn’t be where she is today if she took those kinds of risks. 

She chooses the inside of her knee, right where the patella ends and the bones are nearly visible through the skin. There’s a place where the scar tissue is already thick enough to be tangible, a noticeable variation from her otherwise flawless body. Nobody looks there and even if they did, it would be easy to pass it off as just another mark acquired by falling of a bike. 

She goes about it methodically. Measures the distance, positions the knife. Pierces through the thin surface.

 _One._ The explosion. 

_Two._ The grey eyes of the girl, pupils so large that they almost fill out her entire irises. 

_Three._ The red jacket that was a little too large for her, but well-worn, as if it had been passed down from an older sibling.

 _Four._ The moment of realisation in her eyes when she saw the ceiling coming down on her.

 _Five._ Her scream, high and weak, as if the air had been choked out of her even before she was crushed.

 _Six._ Nat’s hands grabbing empty air.

Blood runs down her calf in slim, crimson rivulets. She forces herself to stop, then. Cleans the wound methodically. The alcohol stings hard, but not hard enough to drown out the the memories.

She’s never told anyone. Steve would be worried. Tony would act indifferent, but then secretly try everything to fix her. Bruce would be afraid, Thor confused. Clint is the only one who’d get her, but sometimes he’s too close, so close that it would hurt him, too, even if he’d never admit it. She’s caused him enough pain already. 

They run nearly parallel to each other, six short, dark, perfect cuts.

  


Later, she sits on the tower’s roof, legs over the edge, the cigarette between her fingers slowly burning down. She doesn’t inhale, just watches it glim and die. Flicks it over the edge into the lights of the city.

Then she examines her knee. The blood has started to clot. She pulls the fringes of the wounds apart, watching the cuts hesitantly fill with red. It burns a little. She cleans them with the hem of her shirt before pulling them open again.  


She must have sat there longer than she thought, because she only realises that it’s evening when Tony staggers outside, his arc reactor glowing in the dark like a misplaced Christmas light. She covers her leg back up reflexively. He’s drunk, so drunk that he’s unstable on his feet, but not yet enough to to be completely ignorant to his surroundings.

He grunts when he lets himself slide down next to her, hanging his feet over the edge of the tower, as always intercepting her space and privacy without asking permission. She doesn’t send him back in, although the chances of him slipping and falling in his state are high enough that she reasonably should.

He offers her the bottle, but she doesn’t take it. No amount of booze could kill the thoughts tonight, and she prefers to keep her head clear and the pain sharp. 

Tony’s a talkative drunk and usually witty enough to make people laugh even when he’s too far gone, but tonight he’s silent. She’s quite sure that it was him who blasted that building, undoubtedly relying on her to get the child out before the structure breaks down. They share the guilt like just another drug, but that doesn’t diminish either of their portions.

They don’t talk about it. Steve’s done that extensively already. _Don’t let it get to you. Sometimes we can’t save everyone._ But the child wouldn’t have died if the Avengers hadn’t attacked the Hydra agents hiding in the building. Where’s the line between protection and endangerment? Between failing to save and killing? Between being a hero and being a murderer? Tonight, Nat doesn’t know the answers.

Tony grabs the cigarette pack without asking, takes one, lights it up with slightly shaky hands. Draws in a deep breath, exhales, watches the smoke rise up into the dirty sky above New York.

“Who’d have thought that, us here,” he slurs, bitterness in his tone. The edges of his words are blurring together.

Nat doesn’t reply. Doesn’t want him here, doesn’t mind him, either. 

They are up so high that the city is almost silent.

Tony finishes his smoke and stubs the cigarette out on the metal ramp. He coughs, his shoulders hitching. 

Nat rises to her feet. “You gonna go inside?” she asks.

“Yeah. Wait.”

He bends over the edge and pukes. The booze comes up easily, but the final heaves are dry, sounding painful. He spits and roughly wipes his mouth when he’s done, gets up with some difficulty.

Nat doesn’t offer him a hand.

Tony walks past her, bumps his shoulder on the frame of the door while trying to get back inside. “Make sure to disinfect this,” he says, nodding in the general direction of her knees. She doesn’t acknowledge it, counting on him passing out on the couch and forgetting about it by morning.

Nat closes the door to the roof when he’s gone. The cuts on her leg sting slightly, satisfyingly. 

**Author's Note:**

> Also a fill for the Bad Things Happen Bingo square "Self-Harm".


End file.
